November 19, 2001
I went to therapy. My old cognitive-behavioral therapist. CBTs are a pain in the ass; there's no sympathy, no "oh, poor you." Just a list of things to do. For instance, I am not allowed to sleep 12 hours a day ("If you're depressed, you're better off sleep-deprived than over-sleeping"), I have to take walks and try to get into the sun, even if it's just sitting by a window, I have to do things I enjoy (we made a list), I have to try to get out of the house every day, I have to shower and put on clean clothes every day.
Eric is a hoot. He has discovered the cats and dogs, and really likes them. In fact, he has noticed that cats have faces, and when they look at him, it makes him laugh. Who knows why. When he sees something he wants, he opens his arms and leans toward it. And he has re-discovered the joys of being horizontal. When he first discovered the joys of being more-or-less upright, as in his exersaucer, he was over being put down on a flat surface. I thought, "How's he ever gonna learn to crawl?" Turns out that being horizontal has become much more fun again now that he can get up on all fours and do butt-bounces (a more energetic and sustained fast-paced version of butt-ups) and now that he is thinking about locomotion. Not accomplishing it; he still goes backwards instead of forward. But he likes trying. The other night David put a rattle just out of his reach, and Eric loved it. He looked at the rattle, and you could see him thinking, "Hmmm, this is a puzzle. There's the rattle...can I reach it? No. Can I get to it? There must be some way...if only I could figure it out." He kept looking up at David and grinning as if to say, "This is a really fun puzzle, Dad." Twenty minutes later, he had scooted three feet backwards in a straight line. But he is not discouraged. One of these days he'll manage a forward scoot, and that will be the death of my peace of mind.
One of the things on my list of things I enjoy is bathing with Eric. We took a bath the other night that sent the fun-meter off the scale. He has discovered splashing for its own sake, and likes to sit on my leg, up to his chest in the water, and bang bang bang. He also likes playing with tub toys now, and when he batted his tugboat out of reach, I would flip him over on his stomach and "zoom" him through the water as he splashed his hands to grab the toy.
He had applesauce yesterday in his new high-chair. It was apparently quite shocking to taste apple for the first time; it took him a minute to process it. He gets so thoughtful when something new happens; you can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he processes the data. But he always decides it's good in the end. He's like the Rex Reed of babies: he likes it all.
I should go; I have a modest to-do list today but it will feel good to accomplish some of it. And there is currently no formula made, which means Eric's next meal with precipitate a crisis if I don't get in there and start mixin'.
Posted by Su Penn at December 24, 2003 12:19 PM | TrackBack